Gordon Young (Communications and Performing Arts) is the facilitator of this faculty interest group that meets monthly to explore readings in Interpersonal Communication, an area of communication that focuses on two person relationships. Interpersonal Communication is central to our classroom, collegial and personal lives and rests on four basic assumptions:

Interpersonal communication is inescapablein our everyday lives. Even when we try not to communicate with someone we still are sending them a message.

Interpersonal communication is irreversible such that we can never take back a message that we have sent to someone even when that messages was in haste or hurtful.

Interpersonal communication is complex because the meanings of the messages that we exchange are in our minds and not in the words that we use.

Interpersonal communication gains meaning from the contexts in which it appears so that a message that might be fine to send to a colleague might seem cold to a loved one or vice versa.

For the 2013-14 academic year the group will start with reading Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation by Michael H. Agar. This is an engaging read that delves into how our cultural understandings inform what it means to have a conversation.

For more information or to join, please contact Gordon at gordon.young@kbcc.cuny.edu. We welcome all faculty and also KCC community members who work directly with students, and invite you to suggest future readings for the group. Please visit our wiki.